YAY! The last Week in School (not the definitive last, but I suppose god can't grant miracles)! Do you know what this means? Two Weeks of rest and relaxation, thats what it means! Now I don't have to get out of bed for another TWO WEEKS! Good thing it was the last Week too, cos' I've been quite ill lately: We'll be going to the Doctors tomorrow to get my ear checked, we think its infected. Still I'm over the worse for now. To be honest, I'm just glad I don't have to go to School tomorrow. Monday: not really a bad day. I had LOTS of Homework to do though, which I hate doing. At least with Science Homework you might actually learn something from doing it! So German was absolutely fine, but M. Etore sure likes to write out those words. I don't think theres been ONE lesson where she hasn't wrote a word to somebody. The fact that my word count is still zero by now is amazing. If you so much as drop a pencil now, she will scream at ANYBODY for 'Disrupting the Class!' and most likely 'Head Teachers Office, NOW!' DAMN thats scrict. At least she acts nice to me, PHEW. So Science that followed was alright, it was letdown by ONE thing though. Remember that Science Test on the day after my Birthday? I recieved the Results and was quite disappointed by what I saw: a 14,5/20? I know what you're thinking: 'Tim, 14,5/20 is hardly disastrous!' Well it is for me! My Results in Science don't normally go below 15-16/20! So now I've been docked a point off my score, I'll be a point BEHIND on my report card for the 3rd Trimestre! The mistake I made was in fact very simple. The Test asked me to present a certain molecular equation in symbols. Thing is, I mistook the word 'equation' for writing out the formula in words. So I put 'One molecule of Oxygene reacts with two molecules of Carbon....' When I should have just put 'O + 2 C...'. Ouch that was fatal, and they asked me to do exactly the same thing in FOUR of the questions on the Test! And I did exactly the same thing for each of them! Apart from THOSE questions I got everything right though, but one misunderstanding cost me SIX points! *HITS HEAD AGAINST THE WALL...HARD* Ohhh its pathetic really, isn't it? Nevermind, I'll get over it....in about five years. Art wasn't Art because the Teacher was away...and we were instead treated to a hour long lecture on Vietnam. Basically there is this village in Vietnam that was flooded by a storm in November and this guy was asking for our help to rebuild it. Apparently the storm damaged the villagers rice stocks plus wiped away their School...god they have it lucky over there! Why can't a flood wipe away OUR School? The man that was presenting the country was quite good. He explained to us how hard they work over there and rice is their only means of survival. On March 18th our School will host a 'Bol de Riz' charity meal in which we will all eat rice instead of our normal lunches and then donate the money saved to the charity. Shame I hate rice, or I would be doing it.... Maths was another WTF I DON'T UNDERSTAND A THING lesson. The main problem for me being that if you replace numbers with letters it just gets very confusing! And why would we replace numbers with letters anyway? Thats like me replacing letters with 2345543! Why do I see a 0/20 coming ahead? And to think that now we don't have more extra Maths (thanks to Technology), to help us on what we don't understand! *SIGH* Geography after the lunch break was us wrapping up on our chapter on The United Kingdom. I had alot of stuff to learn for the Test on Tuesday, alot of useless stuff like where Leeds was situated geographically! NOTE: If you're reading this in Leeds then I'm so, so sorry. French was next, and we were studying a text about this guy who ordered a fancy suit from a tailor and it turned out the vest had super powers. A possesed suit anyone?
Tuesday was me sneezing alot. Overnight I had developped this really aggressive cold that made snot just POUR out of my nose. I had to practically hold a tissue under my nose the entire time. I felt like crap too, which isn't very good when you've got a big History Test that morning! I still went in though, I just HAD to do that Test. Maths was just an hour of me sneezing and looking confused (it doesn't help when you're on painkillers). It got so uncontrollable that the Teacher actually put the bin right by my desk so I could just push all the tissues into it! Apart from the horrendous nose blowing and a few coughs I was still fine though, so its not like I was close to death or anything. Good thing I brought eight packs of tissues with me though, cos' I needed every last one of them. Then after Maths we had the History Test. I feel a bit lukewarm overall, but the Teacher pulled a few questions that seemed a bit difficult to answer without doing a complete guess. I knocked the main question on ten points completely out of the park though so that should boost my score. I think I placed Leeds right, anyway. The two hours of French that followed had me feeling better, but the first hour was jolly boring. It was all study text, reply to questions, study text, reply to questions and it just went on and on and on... the latter half of the second hour was cool though, we watched a bit of Nosferatu (an old early 1900s vampire movie that has a cult status) and to be quite honest it was pretty good! The fact that it was in black and white made it all the more creepy in my opinion and good god is that vampire scary! If the oscars had existed back in the old days of film, they should have given one to Max Shrek (he plays the vampire)! NOW THATS A REAL VAMPIRE, NOT JUST A PRETTY BOY WITH FANGS! TAKE THAT TWILIGHT! Anyway...I found English after Lunch quite enjoyable. My cold had almost gone away at this point (or so I thought). The English Teacher seemed a bit down though, but their was one bit in that lesson that really made me confused. He was just his normal jokey self and then all of sudden gave this serious speech about how he has now lost his son and that 'humor' is the only thing that keeps him going in his life....what the hell was that all about? Was that supposed to be a joke? It seemed a little bit to serious to be a joke if you ask me, and no one commented on it later so has this guy just lost his son after all the disasters in New Zealand? Search me...he continued to be his normal self afterwards but really, WTF? If it WAS a joke then he sure fooled me. German afterwards was exactly the same as Monday, and the Teacher only wrote out one word this time (is this the Teacher on the her good days? The English Teacher hasn't given out ONE word yet). Technology was us rehearsing our big presentation on Infrared. The Teachers notes were to 'make it seem more fluid in presentation' and 'make sure you make it look effortless'. He made it seem as if we were about to present the Oscars or something!
I didn't go into School on Wednesday, because of my cold. I used the 'get out of School' card alright. Man, that cold really F*CKED me up in hindsight. I woke up Wednesday morning not only coughing my ass off, but I was coming down with a serious temperature, headache, a runny nose and a sore/infected ear! This wasn't just a cold, this was a SUPER COLD now! What followed was a day full of tissues, pain killers and ice packs. Heck it makes me feel sick just THINKING about last Wednesday!
Thursday had me go into School, despite a really sore ear this time and more cold tampering senses. I quite simply had to go in, because I had a Test in S.V.T. Maths was just a complete blur, I think I got pretty confused, but all I can remember was sneezing! Sport was just a disaster: I was clearly in NO condition to do twenty press-ups on the ground but do you know what I did? I perservered man, I surmounted every tissue-coated obstacle to reach the highest top on that 'Impossible' tower! And....I basically sucked at it. Didn't help that my team sucked aswell. At the end, when we had preformed our 'montage of different human shapes' to the audience (which consisted of my Class), our team recieved a total of '0' votes. Yep, we were THAT bad. Well we tried. After Sport was the S.V.T Test: even when I was ill I STILL had the willpower to do my homework and revise for this Test...and I think it went well. Just depends on how well I did on the questions about that text on fish mating! To be quite honest, I don't think what was worse: my illness or learning the word 'spermatoziode'. Should I be ashamed to know the mating methods of a Chicken off by heart? Should a 15 year-old-kid really KNOW about these things? Madness, all of it! Lets just hope it went well... The afternoon was composed of German (boring), Extra Maths (more boring, still don't understand a thing) and Music (still boring). At least in Music we were working on the computer messing with Audacity and creating sound bites of city life! Now we're supposed to take photos of La Trinite Porhoet and insert our sounds into them....What if we don't have a camera? Like THAT could be a real problem! At least 'take photos' is better Homework than 'do hours of pointless maths exercises'!
Friday aka the final day before the Holidays! By now the skin on my nose had all but PEELED away, leaving me looking like some sort of snot blowing Zombie and it didn't help that I was limping a bit after all those boody press-ups in Sport. Well the final day was never going to be easy, was it? We changed the groups in technology, pitting me against two squabbling idiots that would rather just chat than work...leaving me to do all the work for them. Sadly I missed out on the presentation of Infrared because I was off on Thursday. We're now going back into alarm systems or as I like to put it: 'People who feel way to insecure and probably have FAR to much money on their hands to by flashy alarm gadgets for their house'. Our schedule was a bit altered as well on Friday because half of our Class was on a trip to see some ancient latin church (we didn't go because we didn't sign up for latin at the start of 5eme). Is it just me but is half my Class always absent now? So next was Maths, where we typed in a few maths equasions into the computer and it solved it for us. Yes, you heard that: THE COMPUTER SOLVED THE PROBLEMS FOR US? SO WHAT WAS EXACTLY THE POINT OF THAT?! YOU'RE TEACHING US HOW TO CHEAT NOW? Anyway after Maths we started a new chapter in Geography: Germany. Well Germany or Spain, depending on the language you chose at the start of the year. Basically they gave me this big questionnaire to fill in and we spent an hour on the Internet trying to find out 'What is the tallest mountain in Germany' or stuff like that. Naturally, my Internet searching skills were put to good use during this. And then we had S.V.T again, where we had to find an example of humans altering/disrupting reproduction in the animal kingdom. I did a little article on forests being picked clean by man. Kind of ironic I thought, seen as I was writing on a piece of destroyed rainforest! After luncheon we watched a video on crabs mating....or we should have, but the video was faulty so instead we watched on old Asterix & Obelix cartoon film ('Asterix and the Britons')! It sure was funny hearing the French impersonating that 'posh' English accent! After that we had Science: we were basically recreating the whole 'spy glass held underneath the sun' experiment. You know how things catch fire under concentrated light? Yep, pretty cool. And of course the Week finished with 'everybody loves English'! It was basically the entire Class messing around for 50 minutes. The Teacher even let us listen to music tracks on YouTube (very poor taste I must say, every single word in their songs begins with the word 'DEATH' or some bloodthirsty rant)! So just one big 'YAY, ITS THE HOLIDAYS SOON' party basically! Very nice of the Teacher to give us a break to do our Homework, too.
Now all of that is over, ITS NOW OFFICIALLY THE HOLIDAYS! YAY!!!!!! A LIFE WITHOUT HOMEWORK, WITHOUT GREULING TESTS AND THE SWEET TASTE OF F-R-E-E-D-O-M. LONG LIVE THE HOLIDAYS!!!!!!
Update: been to the Doctors, and I've a) got ALOT of earwax stuck in there and b) I definitely have an ear infection. The amount of pills I've got to take is unbelievable! But hopefully things should get better now....
YAY, ITS MY BIRTHDAY! I'M FITHTEEN! And as far as 'Weeks In School' go, this wasn't all that bad. Sucks that I'd had a big Test the day after my Birthday though. At least all my hard work was rewarded by a (quite simply) stunning 42inch HDTV! Got to thank all your kind generosity, my loving family. Much appreciated. Anyway, lets delve into this Week, although by now it seems like I've been reliving the same Week of School over and over again. Thank god the Holidays are soon! Monday, a good day by my standards. First lesson was the German Test. I honestly thought I was going to fail this BAD. Mainly because German Tests often include words we haven't even skimmed on in Class, like the word 'tissue' in German. TISSUE? You might want to use a word that we know like 'mobile phone' or something? The Test was lukewarm, and quite frankly I am relived that it went as well as it did! The rest of the Class bombed though, featuring results like 3/30 or 1,5/30! At least I had scraped a 20,75/30 (14,5/20)! The Teacher was far to mean in the correction though. One person next to me got -1 point for FORGETTING TO WRITE HIS NAME! IS THAT EVEN CONSIDERED PART OF THE TEST? And in another part of the Test, where you had to translate a phrase from French to German, surely if you get EVERY WORD right apart from ONE word in said phrase then shouldn't you at LEAST give me half the marks for getting most of the sentence right? German quarries aside, Technology after that was pretty good. My group was just putting the finishing touches on our Diaporama about Infrared. Its coming together quite nicely as well, shame that the French have absolutely no taste whatsoever in colour. They just want to put poop brown on anything. Art was the last lesson on us filming our different film shorts. It could have been better, our filming was pasted onto five minutes at the end in which we just had to rush everything...with a crappy camera. We just tried to make it as funny as possible, even though it was a bit rushed. Maths finished the morning, and it was just BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! Oh, and I got my Test Result from last Thursday, a crap 9,5/20. Although my average for this Trimestre should be around 13,5/20 in total which is still MILES better than my Result in the first one (we should be getting the report in the coming two Weeks)! The afternoon started off with Geography, which was us studying how super-vast London is (we even looked at Leicester, Grand Parents and Auntie). Funny how the Teacher had said that England was more wealthier than France, which definately isn't the case now (our Books are 7 years old). French was us starting a new chapter on 'Fantastical' literature: you know Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts ect... should be interesting. The Class was (of course) in outrage about the Test last Friday (or the Friday before last Friday now), IN WHICH WE RAN OUT OF TIME TO FINISH THAT BULLSH*T TEST. M. Carre did let us continue the Test, so all is now well I suppose.
Tuesday kicked off with Maths, BORING. Everyone knows Maths is boring: even the Teacher knows it (she basically said to the Class: LIVE WITH IT)! Unfortunately, its something thats apparently VITAL for our future so we're stuck with it. Great. Geography was a bit different from Monday: we're basically studying the pro's and con's of living in England. Heres my pick:
PRO'S
- People speak English. - Nice food (Fish & Chips, Pork pies, Teacakes, Hot crustbuns..). - I can actually go to a Cinema and not endure a horribly dubbed film. - Tesco exists... - Stuff is cheap.
CONS
- Bitch to pay for University fees.
- FULL of muderers and drug addicts (or so the news tells us). - Failing economy. - Goverment = FAIL. The draining TWO HOURS of French that followed Geography started off with a Dictation (because the previous one was so well recieved...). It was easy this time, only seven lines to learn! A really bonafide way to earn a 9/10 that really boosts this Trimestre's scores. The other French Test (where I had to write a portrait on Reaver from Fable III/anyone that you chose) didn't go as well though. A 10/20. The Teacher was nice, she gave us a second chance to re-do the Test and get a better score! I was actually surprised my how many spelling mistakes I did on my first try, but then again I am English so it is sorta excusable. Hopefully my second attempt was better. The afternoon started with...ENGLISH! Good ol' lovable, easy-as-pie English! We wrote a letter to the Class in New Zealand, and started to type it into the Computer. Everyone loves the English Teacher now, he's like sooo on our level, you know? Maybe he's that one guy that inexperienced Teenagers can actually understand? I don't know, he's just the best Teacher ever. German was alot of people complaining about their Test Results and the Teacher writing out alot of words because of it. I suppose she doesn't take criticism well. She's like the Teacher equivalent of THE DARK SIDE. And Extra Maths was AGAIN replaced by Technology, which is such a MASSIVE improvement. I don't know why Technology has replaced Extra Maths, but I hope its permanent. Like REALLY permanent. We printed out our diaporama on Infrared and made it look all flashy by adding drawings and stuff. Next Week is the Presentation of our Diaporama to the Class, and I'm pretty sure we'll get a 20/20 now. Shame most of it is coloured brown.
Wednesday was another good day, mostly because a) It was my Birthday on Thursday and b) Sport was actually fun! No one got hurt, or sent to Hospital and I didn't suck in everything! YAY! The 30 seconds to grab the ball was easy because I just curled up into a ball for 30 seconds, (a tactic which no one had yet tried) and it worked out well enough. Everyone copied it afterwards though, so that sucked. Copying little &%$@£'s! Technology (yes, three days of Technology in a row) was us perfecting our Speech that is to be recited to the Class in a Weeks time and we finally got our Test Results from the last Test: I got a 11,5/15, which was STILL the highest score in the Class...somehow. Everyone else had got poor Results apparently. Bit unhappy, because that means my score for this Trimestre will be brought down by it...oh well. 11,5/15, is hardly a 19,75/20 is it? In French we were tasked with a project: Create a horror movie poster, write a story around it and then implement sounds to make it extra creepy. Apparently we'll be working on this til' June, so its sounds like a big project. By the end of the hour, we had already cracked an idea and started drawing the poster. Want to know what our monster is? Living Statues, like the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who. I showed the poor Doctor-Who-less French a video on YouTube and they just creeped the F*CK out. So, finally a way I can show/introduce the French to Doctor Who. I am like the Messiah of Doctor Who now, spreading its teachings to the poor, bewieldered and savage Frenchies. THOU SHALT WATCHETH DOCTOR WHO! THOU SHALT LOVETH ITH! Permanence was just me doing endless amounts of Homework, so nothing much to comment on there...GOOD GOD ARE THESE MATHS EXERCISES GETTING REPETITIVE!
Last Thursday can't be called a 'Normal' day in School...BECAUSE IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY-DAY! Man, it sucks going into School on your Birthday, at least there was no Tests. I suppose it was a good Birthday sans-School: 350 euros, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World on Blu-Ray AND a chocolate creator (make your own Chocolates, YUMMY)! Then I had to go to School. Such a damper on things. Meh, could have been a worse day. 4eme A (my Class) and 4eme B (the other Class) merged together on this day because the other half of the School opted to do Artisan stuff with these Artisan people who came to the School: the event was called CAPEB, and seen as I didn't sign up for it, I beared the Results. And the Results were the Schedule being a bit messed up: Sport was the first lesson (an hour in advance), and seen as the Classes were cut in half we couldn't really continue with Acro-Gym (Thank-F*ING-God) so we all voted for Football. I came out of those two hours the best, because I didn't sustain ANY injuries (the girls don't kick the Football, they miss and kick your LEGS instead! OUCH! Many people were on the floor, cradling their poor knees) and also because I didn't suck at it, which in Sport, is a real GODSEND for me. That was then followed by English, in which the Teacher was a bit late because of the changed schedule. Good thing he arrived, because we would be stuck doing Maths exercises if it wasn't for him. Then that was followed by Maths, which was us Reviewing anything that we didn't understand and wanted to look back on. Yep you guessed: BORING. By now its practically routine for me to say it. The afternoon was a rehash of German (just us doing exercises) and S.V.T, in which we watched a Doumentary on Whales mating (lovely). And it all finished with music, where we basically had to create a sound bite (about 1min long) of city life (i.e Police sirens, Roadworks ect...). So all in all, not a bad day....shame that it was on my BIRTHDAY though. And not one person in School knew it was my Birthday either. What followed after School was parties, watching Scott Pilgrim on Blu-Ray (wonderful film) and....Revision. Anyway, on to Friday:
Friday wasn't anything spectacular, there was a Science Test and...well...that was it! It started off with Technology (AGAIN?) which was me waiting around and doing nothing while the rest of the Class were finishing their diaporama's. It got a bit boring actually. At least I know OUR diaporama is THE BEST. Geography was more of the same, with a Test slated for next Tuesday...YIPPY! And Maths was (in a word) confusing: all it said was x - y = 3,2? Huh? And we had to judge whether x was bigger than y or vice versa. I am just completely LOST on that. How the heck can you know if x is bigger than y? The Afternoon was me heading into the much anticipated Science Test (on Molecules) and as expected it went really well (apart from a few dodgy questions at the end which left me a bit confused). Science after that (I know, two hours of Science in a row, at least Science is partially interesting) was us starting a new chapter on how the eye works. Hopefully there won't be as much to learn for the Test on this! We have just started experimenting with different lenses and stuff. Pretty cool I guess. And the Week capped off with English, where the Teacher (M. Greg) showed us a map of New Zealand...and thats it. We didn't actually accomplish much in this lesson, it was just the Teacher making jokes. Funny lesson. Make a Secretary weep though. And thats it for this Week! Who knows what the next (and final) Week before the Holidays will bring? Hopefully not MORE Homework. And MORE Tests? Well according to my Homework Book, YES! Come on, can you AT LEAST give us a Week off? *GRUMBLES*
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Damn, I'm fifthteen (well, tomorrow I am)? Wasn't I like twelve yesterday? Wait, I'll be Sixteen next year? Thats only a year before I'm seventeen! This is so much to take in, wow. I feel old all of a sudden (though I suppose to a seventy-year-old 15 is probably just a walk in the park)! Sucks that I have to go to School, I know loads of people have to go to School/work on their Birthdays but for me its like the first time in ages, so its like going into School on Christmas for me! At least I haven't got that many Tests (although I will have to do Sport, ON MY BIRTHDAY!? OH COME ON, GIVE ME A BREAK!), and as far as Birthdays go, it will just be like any other day, but it should be the opposite. Normally on my birthday I sleep-in and play with any games or toys I'll have got (or as I like to put it: Items Very Kindly Donated From The Family). This Years going to be a bit of a no show. I've got a big Science Test to revise for on Thursday night as well, which just adds to this suck-o-meter. Of course to some homeless person in Afghanistan going to School on your Birthday is nothing, but when you're a Teenager its the worst thing ever (though then again, everything with us is either 'This Sucks' or 'Totally Cool Dude')! I suppose Birthdays are just another excuse to shoe-horn in more presents from your unlucky Family (nobodys complaining though), we will just about celebrate for ANYTHING won't we? You was born on this day fithteen years ago...SO WHAT, THAT WAS FIFTHTEEN YEARS AGO! DO I CARE? NO! JUST GIVE ME THE GOD DAMN PRESENTS ALREADY (not that I'm greedy or anything)! Anyway I hope that I don't half-ass the Science Test just because its my birthday, (thats why I asked for money so I won't be distracted by any cool new crap sitting on my table). Oh, the pain! Why did the College postpone the Holidays for an extra two Weeks? This time last Year I was in Holiday land! This time sorta feels right as well, because the Weeks are now just starting to get really tiresome and just drag like hell (every lesson feels like a snail that can't move, which is REALLY REALLY SLOW), I sure hope the Holidays are worth it, cos i'm working my ass off here!
Tim, who is now wishing to have been born on a date that DOESN'T COINCIDE WITH A GOD DAMN SCHOOL DAY!
Hi there, am currently writing this in Bed, and thanks to the miracle of Wi-Fi I can now sleep, play games AND surf the Web without ever having to leave the comfort of my trusty mattress! This Week was a bit all over the place, what with unfinished Tests, injurys in Sport (someone in my Class actually went to hospital!), and really boring days (I'm looking at you Maths). After six back-to-back Weeks its starting to get a bit tiring now, luckily the Febuary holidays are just in sight. If I were to describe this Week in one word, it would be: grueling.
Monday started off with German, and my god is that Teacher strict! If you so much as BREATHE in Class she'll write a word to your Parents! Forget your German book? WORD. Forget to sign your word? ANOTHER WORD. Drop your pencil-case on the floor? A WORD! You have to be PERFECT in her Class, its like her 'mystery' illness made her into some sort of Battle-Axe! She loves to give us RIDICULOUS mountains of Homework as well, and the next Test has me almost weeping over the colossal amount of stuff to revise for! I'm finding it very hard to like this Teacher now, I really am, but she's such a B*TCH! Science was next, and this was the lesson where my brain started to hurt. Molecules can be a pain in the ass to get your head around them, I can tell you! Art was probably the best lesson of the day, as we started filming on our 'film shorts'. We didn't actually get to film our short (we ran out of time, so it'll be us next week) but it was funny watching everyone else film. The premise for one of the shorts was three students that were fighting in the playground and (of course) the Head comes out and gives them a right telling off. What made it so funny is that THEY ACTUALLY BEAT THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF A POOR KID WHILE THE TEACHER WAS FILMING THE SCENE! They went full on brutality here folks, two guys from my Class just pounded the living crap out of this one kid and I mean POUNDED. They dragged him onto the floor, kicked him several times in the side, and punched him until his glasses came off! Not to mention taking his shoe off and lobbing it at him...all while the Teacher was praising their 'great acting'. THAT WAS NO ACTING! THEY'RE ACTUALLY BEATING THE POOR GUY TO DEATH! It made things even more sinister when you add to the fact that the two kids beating up the guy on the ground actually HATE that kid, so it was sort of a way to get their own back on the poor guy (And this kid was in crutches mere Weeks ago due to an arm injury, so beating him up on the School playground isn't such a good idea...). Even the Teacher afterwards admitted that it was a bit TOO much, even for the sake of the film. Can't say it wasn't realistic though. Superb acting, I really felt it when the guy started screaming for help! Thats gotta go down in the 'I can't believe they got away with it Book!' Maths was the final lesson in the morning, and even for math's 'standard' this lesson was boring. The afternoon kicked off with French (the Teacher decided to switch the order of the two subjects for some reason) and it basically amounted to us doing endless exercises on those bloody adjectifs. Geography was better, mainly because we've just started on 'The United Kingdom' or 'Le Royaume-Uni' as the french like to call it. As you can guess, I'm already guaranteed a 20/20 in this Test! I laughed when we looked at your climat, which was pretty much just constant raining with little sunshine! Ahhh, so true...
Tuesday wasn't anything remarkable, Maths was just so.....ZZZZZZZ. French was two Tests back-to-back. Test one was a dictation, which at the time I thought went actually quite well (I counted three mistakes) but I must have been wearing beer goggles at the time because it turns out I only garnered a 4,5/10. EPIC FAIL! It annoyed me even more because the thickest person in the Class (well I wouldnt say thick, more 'unwilling') managed to get a 10/10. NO FRIKKIN WAY! At least the 'Write a portrait' Test went okay, it just depends on how good I am at writing French. Shame, if I was doing this Test in English I bet I would knock it out of the park! Geography was better, a bit surprised on how little the French knew about England. They didn't even know we had a Queen! English was fun, and is easily the best lesson: the Teacher joked that he should have a pay rise after teaching our Class, and then began to sit on the floor and exlame: 'I'm finding my inner Zen.... hummmm, hummm!' Funny how nobody apart from the English know what he's saying, I doubt any of them know what 'Zen' is! Of course, when German started everything just went to a complete stop. This Teacher just holds the Class over an iron grip, no funny talk aloud (so basically the exact opposite of the English Teacher). She CLEARLY is not getting any brownie points with us. After German came a neat surprise: in the place of Extra Maths we were to have Technology instead (for some reason, though I ain't complaining)! Tehnology is of course INFINITELY better than Extra Maths so it was a happy surprise. We started doing research on Infrared (or Infrarouge as the French say), you know that cool laser thing that sends signals from your remote control to your telly?
Wednesday went well, and by well I mean nothing went wrong. Sport was quite enjoyable this time, although some of the kids were a bit rough when trying out Judo tackling moves (strangling the kid isn't exactly the best option, dude). The mini-exercises included: thirty seconds to get out of a headlock, and the first one to hit the ground (in a fight) loses...so in other words it could be fun and both brutal at times. I couldn't help but think 'OOOH PENALTY' everytime someone hit the floor! To be honest I'm just happy that I didn't suck at anything! Technology was next, and we continued to do research on Infrared. Turns out that if you set it to a high enough frequency it can sizzle flesh like you've never seen. Now thats just COOL! Who knew a remote control can be so deadly? A.T.P was the Teacher asking us to look at different jobs and research them, so I went for electrician. Buggers get paid up to 1700 euros (for beginners) a Month apparently. Permanence was me trying to tackle that mountain of German Homework (again). Thursday was THE day of the Week, in short: alot of crazy sh*t happened. It kicked off with a Maths Test. I went into this one thinking it would be easy, seen as I'd more than prepared for it, but good god was it a tough one! I know I got my definitions right, its just that I'm afraid that I might have effed up a bit on the calculations. We'll see, but AB 2 + BC 2 = AC 2 can't be that hard to do can it? I hope I did well, at least I'm happy knowing that I couldn't have done any better, which is the main thing right? And then there was Sport, which was a COMPLETE AND UTTER DISASTER OF A LESSON! You know how we're doing human pyramids and shapes now? Well one girl wanted to do a handstand and then break into a forward roll and she accidentally landed on her neck....ouch. The lesson before that was fine, although I think I've ripped a stomach muscle after attempting several pushups (we had to do many MUSCLE-TEARING exercises) because whenever I sit down or get out of bed I can feel something tearing. God I'm unfit...anyway so apart from a few strenous exercise routines (and several people standing on my back, probably breaking it forever) everything was okay until that girl fell on her neck. It hurt so bad I don't think she could even cry! She couldn't move her head, had trouble breathing and was just screaming all over the place so the Teacher called an Ambulance...half an hour later (so much for emergency service, if you've got minutes to live and are in desparate need of an ambulance then you're F*CKED! They were probably finishing off their lunch at the time!) the Ambulance arrived, luckily by that time she had stopped screaming and was acting a little bit more normal. They took her, stretcher and all to the Hospital. And if you're a Sports Teacher that isn't good news at all. To add to it, one kid came in on Friday with a neckbrace because she too had hurt her neck in Sport! So while Sport was cancelled for the rest of the day (more like in COMPLETE SHUTDOWN), that didn't stop the other lessons from continuing on as normal. We were supposed to be having a surprise S.V.T Test, but luckily Sport put an end to that so it was postponed until a few Weeks later (thank God, because I hadn't revised at all). So instead we looked at Tortoises mating, which I'm sorry but it just cracks me up so hard, they're like ramming into each other for five minutes and then just make the silliest of noises (I compare the sound to an old man farting)! After Lunch was German. Or it was supposed to have been German! The German Teacher....surprise surprise....WAS ABSENT! AGAIN?! WELL AT LEAST THIS SHE CANT GIVE US MORE GOD DAMNED HOMEWORK! ILL AGAIN? AWWW THATS TOO BAD! We basically just sat reading books in the library for half an hour. Extra Extra Maths was....you know how boring it is at this point! Why do I even bother to mention it now! Music was us watching this weird video that started about a famous french painter and then morphed into this weird acid trip with fake English accents....year I don't understand it too, nor do I know what it has to do AT ALL with Music! Something about Big Ben and a Cathedrale painting I think? Search me...these lessons can be pretty nutty you know!
Friday was ok, much calmer than Thursday. We still had Technolgy in the place of extra Maths which is still SUCH an improvement. I wish its always this way cos' Extra Maths is just greuling. French was us revising and preparing for the French Test later on that day, which was really nice of the Teacher to dedicate an entire lesson to it...although the less said about the actual Test the better....but in Geography I found out that I had scored a 18/20 in my last Test. I knew it went well so no surprises there. S.V.T was just as wacky as the day before, only this time it was frogs! Little suckers can pump out 7000 eggs per pond! Now thats a feat, shame that 99% of them fail to reach frog-hood. BAD PARENTING, FOLKS! The French Test after the break didn't go well. For starters, it was too bloody damn long! Nobody in my Class was able to finish it by the end of the hour! NOBODY! And that just isn't fair, is it? And the stuff I did do was rushed because I was trying to complete all of it before the hour ran out! I CALL BULLSH*T! THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, THE TEST WAS SIMPLY FAR TOO LONG AND UNCOMPLETABLE IN THIS TIME PERIOD! Hopefully the Teacher will let us either continue the Test or just scrap it completely, and give us a new one. That just isn't fair though, we needed more time! Science after that train wreck was fine, we didn't really cover alot of ground though, hopefully the Test next Week won't be so hard (its on the day after my Birthday, so I'll try not to be too distracted, Revision does come first I suppose). The Week capped off with English, which was us writing a rough draft of an email that we're going to send to a few New Zealand correspondants (the English Teacher has got connections to a School in New Zealand so we'll be exchanging a few emails). English Teacher on fine form, as usual. The guy should be a stand up comedian!
So that was this Week, and no, I don't know what happened to that poor girl that was sent away in the Ambulance. Hopefully she's fine...or she has some spinal problem that will stop her from walking ever again... I really doubt that though. Gosh, Sport really is DANGEROUS now! BAN SPORT, I SAY!
You know what? This Week wasn't that bad! For once little went wrong/iffy, and this should mark a crowning achievement for ANY School! Of course, there are still tons of things to complain about, namely Homework and that Bloody thing called Sport but I suppose they're only minor when you look at the bigger picture. Heck, its the month of my 15th B-Day so all should be going well! Why I bloody deserve a good Week out of all the past trial and tribulations! Huhhrah to Febuary, I say (then again, I suppose next Week could be a complete crock of Sh*t)!
Lets start off with Monday, a day that kick started with our recent replacement for German, Permanence! At least we got to work on our mountain of Homework this time (funny how a few Weeks earlier I stated that we don't have ENOUGH Homework). That was then followed by good ol' Technology, were we moved on from automated detectors to actual everyday stuff, like how the wireless Internet signal works (one person in my Class suggested that the Image was 'beamed' into our heads and then projected onto a screen! Don't know whether he was serious or joking but if he wasn't then I'm seriously worried for him, because we all know that the Internet is merely a figment of our imagination right?). Art was us drawing and thinking up the camera shots for my Teams short movie and Maths was more of the same: endless and ENDLESS piles of exercises! History was better though, we watched a video on how f*cked up Russia is (both economically and climat wise), and French was me analysing text from the translated Bram Stokers Dracula (Le Vampyre du Nuit says 'Bonjour Mortels! Voulez-vous un criossant?').
Tuesday was fine, in Maths we actually looked at something new (for once), History was just us watching more Videos on Russia (this time we were looking at an old village called Saienogorz, a poor direlect town full of old people with no teeth), and the TWO Hours of French was us learning the different ways to tell a Story: for example the text can be subjectif with words like: fun, happy, great or Objectif with words like: it seemed fun, happy, great. We also learnt that you could use 'Positive' words in the text, or 'Negative' words that manipulates the emotions of the Reader. First time French really spoke to me, I can tell you. The afternoon went by in seconds, were the English Teacher was still playing the funny man (he reffered a few gossiping girls to 'Chickens' and then made that annoying clucking sound that Homer Simpson does so well). Complete riot! German was sadly, more Homework and Extra Maths was extra dull but oh well it was a good day apart from that!
Wednesday did pose a few minor problems, and it all had to do with Sport: We had 30 seconds to get the ball from the other person (it was basically rugby but on all fours) and it all ended up with the ball flying towards my face...OUCH. I thought for sure I had lost a Tooth, but thankfully the pain was mostly in the gums and it subsided after TWO days. Which was a shame, as I would have enjoyed it if it wasn't for that meddling ball! The second exercise was someone being voted 'The Crocodile' and the objectif was to grab the legs of a escaping person and tackle them onto the floor. Of course all the little buggers went for me first, which just reinforces the saying: 'The bigger they are, the harder they fall'. After Sport was the Technology Test, which went really well, its just the case of how well it went. Then in Vie de Class (the Teacher decided to switch French to Friday) we all proposed different debates on a number of topics. We ended up proposing the idea for a 'Play Room', a Room where kids can go and basically just chill out. I thought that we already have the Library, which is a nice place to relax when you have no Homework to do in Permanence but we went crazy, proposing a room full of HD-T.VS, Laptop computers, Video games, comfy chairs (WTF? The School is NEVER going to agree to all this Sh*t!) and even food and drinks served for free! The Teacher was like 'Ok, do what you want, live in your PERFECT School fantasy ect...' but I just found it incredibly funny how preposterous the demands got! Of course we all DREAM of a Room like that in School but COME ON GUYS, BE REAL HERE! Permanence was me starting the COLOSSAL amount of German Homework for the following day (we had to do a sort of 'Fact File' on Germany with pages of informative stuff to research).
Thursday, was a bit rough and boring at times: Maths was same old, same old, Sport was fine (back to doing those crappy human pyramids again, such a bore...and really bad on your back) and I nearly fainted AGAIN in S.V.T when we looked at how Chickens mate (I'll never look at Eggs the same way again!). The afternoon marked a MONTH of our German Teacher's abscence, and surprisingly, SHE SHOWED UP FOR ONCE! After ONE month! No one commented on her abscence (she was apparently REALLY ill) and she looked a bit on the pale side but overall everything was back to normal. The one thing that really, REALLY bugs me is that after ALL that Homework she gave us, AFTER ALL that back-braking work I had to endure, she just dismissed it all and told us to put it in a folder and FORGET ABOUT IT? WHAT!!!! THIS HOMEWORK NEARLY KILLED ME GODAMMIT AND YOU JUST WAVE IT AWAY LIKE IT'S NOTHING? GOOD GOD I COULD JUST &^&%@$! Anyway after all that Homework that basically amounted to NOTHING, we did a recap of everything we've learnt (cos' the last time any of us spoke German was in December) and just continued like it was any other lesson. Extra Extra Maths was mind numingly boring and I pretty much made the Music equivalent of Sh*t on my flute in Music (I got a puny 6/10, which was still alot more than I deserved, my near-perfect average has plummeled as well thanks to the score).
Friday was okay, Extra Maths was more boring than Thursdays (I think we're suffering from too much Maths exposure!), French was fine (alot of god damned Homework though!) and History was the last lesson on Russia (In short: don't live in Russia). Maths was infuriating because of the amount of Homework she has given us for tomorrow (take out your books and do Exercises 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ,13, 14...page 209!). After a lunch time break we endured the Geography Test on Russia (the stuff that we did on that day wasn't a part of the Test for OBVIOUS) and it all went superbly well, in fact I think I only got one thing wrong! YAY! Science went off to a wobbly start though with a SURPRISE INTERROGATION! Its ironic seen as normally we have Permanence in the hour previous (but the Teachers can decide to put Tests in these hours) and I would normally spend this time revising just IN CASE there was a surprise interrogation, and THE ONE DAY where I can't revise for it and THATS the day when he decides to interrogate me? God I swear the Teachers are doing this on purpose! I got a 3/5 none-the-less and I did score a 16,5/20 in the Test from last Week so all was well really. English capped off the Week, providing endless comedy standups (I don't even think it can be qualified as a lesson now, we're too busy laughing to work). And that was it!
So there you go, not a bad Week all-in-all, but really: CUT DOWN ON THE FRIGGING HOMEWORK GUYS! THIS IS BULLCRAP!
If I were to sum up Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 in a few words it would be: Short but Sweet. God, remember when wielding a lightsaber and cutting a stormtrooper in half was cool? Well now you get to wield TWO lightsabers (hence the II title of the game), for DOUBLE the fun! God I pity those stormtroopers, they're like lambs for the slaughter...
The Force Unleashed II is the sequel to the hit game The Force Unleashed, a game lauded for its storytelling and epic combat. These games quite literally put you into the shoes of the ultimate Jedi badass, Starkiller (or Galen Marek, but Vader gave him a much cooler name).
Poor kid, although many Star Wars fans would have died to be brought up by Vader:
So, for people who didn't play the first AWESOME game, Starkiller kick-started the Rebel Alliance, beat the CRAP out of Vader and nearly killed the Emperor in one fell swoop before he sadly landed in a coffin, or more bluntly put: he died. So when the sequel to this great game was announced I, along with many other people thought about how the heck they could/should continue the Series with the main character having snuffed it at the end of the previous one! I admit that when they announced that he was going to be cloned it was a ingenious idea, but it did feel a little shoehorned in JUST because the first game was such a success.
So, the story for The Force Unleashed II is basically summed down to this: Starkiller escapes from Vaders clutches, searches out his old buddie Kota, goes to see his girlfriend but finds out that she was captured by Boba Fett (why do so many people LOVE Boba Fett?) and sent to Vader, goes to rescue her and captures Vader THE END. Pretty basic, but the voice acting is truly top notch and the dialogue is up to scratch as well so you can't fault it that much. Cutscenes do feel far and inbetween though, and add an hour of repetitive gameplay between each of them seems to make it feel even LONGER. I like how they've implemented characters like Boba Fett and Yoda but they are a bit pointless (Yoda has one long speech and thats it, big woop). The storytelling is by far the best thing about the game though hands down, and on a 2nd playthrough it really shines even more. Shame it was so short lived though...
Yes, the gameplay does get boring after a while, which is odd seen as you're tearing up mile long ships IN HALF or doing really epic things with your Force Powers for most of it (another gripe: if I can tear mile long spaceships in two, what threat does Vader pose?). I think alot of it is due to the fact that you're almost TOO much of a badass, as I drifted through this game without even dying ONCE (okay, I did fall from high platforms alot but that was due mainly to my errors, not damage that the enemys had inflicted on me) and an army of Stormtroopers that would just get decimated in seconds, almost as if they were mere obstacles for the player to CRUSH. Sure you can slice em' up with your Lightsaber or blast with your Force lightning, blow them away, mindwash the buggers and even propel them towards other objects but doing the same thing over and OVER again just got way to old, far too fast. Sure they try to spice things up by having some certain enemys impervious to lightsaber attacks but vunerable to your force powers (or the opposite) but again, after endless waves of enemys being thrown at you it becomes a little bit tedious, and you only really play it to advance the Story. This is why I would advise you play this game in short snippets, to stop it from becoming too boring (I did this on my 2nd playthrough and found it IMMENSLY more enjoyable, but it is still far too tedious at times). The highlight to the gameplay is BY FAR the awesome power you feel at the end of each Boss-fight/level. You will feel like greatest Badass the galaxy has ever known by the end of it (Vader, again gets battered down to an inch away from death).
Now presentation wise this game is SUPERB, looking miles ahead from the first game (and even that looked pretty cool) and the facial animation is...dare I say it...life-like, really capturing those emotions. The enviroments are really well designed as well (shame there's so few of them to gawp at!) and at times it felt like you were watching a movie! Again, its another great looking game. Every years technology reallyis leaps and bounds ahead of the previous one, and I can't wait to see what games will look like in two years time!
So overall the game is a fun experience, but is let quite down by repetitive (if empowering and awesome for 20min) combat and a really short experience. The game took me around 6-7 Hours to beat it, and when compared to games like Red Dead Redemption or Mass Effect that are the same price but over 30 hours in content value, it doesn't really hold a candle to them. I do praise the Story still, and even if it is half as short (and not really as good) as the first game it still sets the bar for game storytelling. Again I say that games are STILL ignored for the potential that they hold, both immersively and Story wise, which just pains me. It doesn't however, wet my appetite in any way for the inevitable sequel, which seems to be building up to something really BIG (Vader controlled clone army of Jedi's, anyone?) and it had better be continued because some SERIOUS plot points are never resolved by the end (we have yet to know whether he really IS a clone or perhaps he's just the original Starkiller but brainwashed). I was actually quite lukewarm after my first playthrough, almost disliking it but after a 2nd go I really do think its better than what most reviewers make it out to be...ultimately though it is just someone else's opinion. FORCE OUT!
River Song, one of the most interesting characters in New Who lore, mainly because we know almost nothing about her, but who is she, really?
So far the three main theories about River Song (if that IS her name, nobody other than her has confirmed thst) have been:
- She's the Doctor's wife
- She kills the Doctor and/or a good man
- The Doctors Mother (apparently already unconfirmed by Moffat although it would be kinda plausable).
Either way she's seems to have been locked up in prison for an extensive period of her life, or so we think, the Doctor and her always meet at different points in her timeline. Now surely if Moffat (the writer) is worth his stuff at all it won't be any of these (far too obvious seen as they've already been hinted at), and the best thing to do is turn it on its head completely.
So, what, apart from these main theories would be a smart, believable way to shock us about River Song?
I actually think that perhaps River Song isn't the big to-be companion or wife of the Doctor, why can't she just be an evil alien that just quite simply lyed to the Doctor about their future History? I mean sure, you have the Tardis Book that acts as her diary, but nobody's actually looked in it have they? It could be just blank pages for all we know! Perhaps by Episode 6-7 the Doctor is starting to doubt River Songs supposedly true claims about the future and takes a peek at the diary, only to find its completely empty? She has the potential to be DW's best villain just by fooling the Doctor into thinking they had a future together! Also, she could be working for the Silents (or perhaps she IS a silent, but her true form only shows up in a mirror or something?). She could have caused the Tardis to explode (just like the Doctor did in Amy's Choice). Or, perhaps she's the Rani...GOTCHA (no seriously that would really suck)! No, but really Alex Kingston could play a master villain, and has been manipulating the events of both Series (or perhaps she's not the real River, she's just impersonating her or something!) in a Timey-wimey way. It would explain the Daleks fear of her in The Big Bang as well, because she's so powerful and evil that not even a Dalek can keep its ¤¤¤¤¤ together in front of her. So, in short, my theory is that River Song will turn out to be evil. REALLY EVIL. Bear in mind that apart from that scene in the Big Bang that suggests a more evil nature about her I have nothing to back this up with and is merely speculation on the part of a over-hyped/exited DW fanboy. But even if River turns out to be a good guy in the end I think we can all agree that It will probably be one of those I-DIDN'T-SEE-THAT-COMING twists that might have something to do with the 'Silence will fall' arc. Either way I can't wait to see how Series Six pans out (only two months left!)...EXITING!
